Discrepancies
between Parent and Youth Reports of Youths' Antisocial Behavior:
Comparisons of Canadian Sexual and Nonsexual Offenders

Some
theorists view adolescent sexual offenses as manifestations
of general juvenile delinquency that can be explained by antisocial
personality traits. Other theorists focus on factors specific
to sexual offending, such as prior sexual abuse. Skilling,
Doiron, and Seto (2011) assessed 12- to 20-year-old males
(78 sexual and 295 nonsexual offenders) referred by Canadian
courts for mental health evaluations. Along with other measures,
the youths completed the YSR while parent figures completed
the CBCL. Discrepancies between YSR and CBCL scores on the
Rule-Breaking Behavior and Aggressive Behavior syndrome scales
for each youth were computed as the difference between each
youth's YSR score standardized within the sample and the youth's
CBCL score standardized within the sample. For sexual offenders,
parents rated the youths significantly lower on both the Rule-Breaking
Behavior and Aggressive Behavior scales than the youths rated
themselves. For nonsexual offenders, by contrast, parents
rated the youths higher on both scales than the youths rated
themselves. Although comparisons of YSR and CBCL scores have
shown that youths in many societies report more problems than
their parents report for them, the Skilling et al. findings
indicate that there may be exceptions for particular kinds
of problems. The authors concluded that "The magnitude
and direction of informant discrepancies may provide an opportunity
to identify and understand differences in delinquent and antisocial
behavior within groups of adolescent offenders" (p. 162).